With regards to weak torpedoes

[wetwarev7]

I haven't yet made contact with the enemy except for the tutorial so I haven't been able to test it but I was thinking, are the people who are reporting that it takes too many torpedoes to sink a ship aware that one torpedo can sink a ship if it causes said ship to take on water, or catches fire?

What I mean is, In SH3 and SH4 (which also had weak torpedoes), I would only fire one or two well aimed torps at a target then wait to see if it was going to sink. Most of the time (if not immediately) it sank anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours later, so i wonder if people are just being too impatient?

[mookiemookie]

I hit a ~4000 ton Hog Island freighter with 2 torpedoes, one bow, one stern. It was on fire from bow to stern but yet sailed on unaffected. I think that's the problem that people are complaining about - it shows no signs of damage like slowing speed or listing even after being decimated by torpedoes.

[wetwarev7]

But did you wait around to see if it sank? or did you go ahead and use another torpedo?

[deknegt90]

Well i didnt have any problems when i sank 3 warships trying to ping me.

I shot one next to the engine and it was declared dead immediatly.

But when i shoot merchantile vessels i need to shoot atleast 2 at them =\

[walsh2509]

As I have said in other posts , I think this was a ploy by the devs, not only are Torps weak when you set up so are your crew.

I think they have done this as part of the Role Play part of the game, while I can see why they might have a point with the crew being raw and learning as they go, its still a bit much to think that your sonar guy can't hear nearly anything setting out.

I read in horror , along with others about the Boosts to players like the torp man when you use Renown points and this can boost the explosive power of torps. But that was us , me , thinking that the torps in the game would have the same power as in SH3 / SH4 Uboat addon, but they are weaker and you only get them BACK to what they should have been by using Renown points.

I thought we would be starting out with SH3/SH4 torps and these boosts would make them SUPER torps , but so far that is not the case.

Pre using my points on the torp officer , it would take 4 torps to get the Bar down on a ship , but with add of point to that section of the officers ability it took 3 and now its down to 2.

As i said I think , they thought this would give us some sort of Role play add to building your crew.

[wetwarev7]

As I have said in other posts , I think this was a ploy by the devs, not only are Torps weak when you set up so are your crew.

........


As i said I think , they thought this would give us some sort of Role play add to building your crew.


Well, I think that was the intention of the crew gaining experience and ratings in SH3 and SH4 as well.

My question is, has anyone actually waited to see if the ships take on water or fire damage and sink on their own?

[mookiemookie]

But did you wait around to see if it sank? or did you go ahead and use another torpedo?

I wasn't in position to use another torp, so I watched it for a couple of game-hours to see what would happen. Sailed on in convoy like nothing happened.

[wetwarev7]

I wasn't in position to use another torp, so I watched it for a couple of game-hours to see what would happen. Sailed on in convoy like nothing happened.

ok, thanks!

[tater]

This came up in SH4 in the context of modding the fish.

I was surprised to find that the number of torpedoes it took in RL was—contrary to anecdote—more with german torpedoes than American fish. The caveat being actual hits, when you include failures to detonate, prematures, etc, then the US fish suffer greatly.

The average number of hits to sink an allied ship was more than one fish. That means that many, but not all took 2. I checked all the Hog Islander attacks (and similar targets attacked by fleet boats in the PTO), and I checked all the Liberty Ship sinkings, along with ships of similar tonnage in the PTO.

The US fish were grossly more likely to sink the target with 1 fish, BTW.

For the PTO data I did not use US claims of tonnage, since they were so often wrong. I only used attacks where the specific, named ship was confirmed by japanese records (along with the actual tonnage). It's interesting to not that my records use claimed hits (the notes sometimes even correct these from japanese records). This means that likely I overestimated the number of hits to sink, since it's entirely possible that some claimed hits in a spread were prematures. This would mean that RL mk14s were even more effective.

When I checked for warship attacks, I found US and German fish t be effectively identical in terms of hits per sinking of a given tonnage.

From a post I made on the subject (Hog Islander attacks up to 1943):
Actually, the hog island stats he posted earlier are telling. I checked (as I posted above), and 88% of the ~5k ships hit with 1 fish by US subs sank with just the 1 hit. When I picked ships in the US stats, I took them from 4800 to 5500 tons, too, so bigger ships, and STILL more effective.

I just broke the 32 hog island attacks on uboat.net into individual attacks by reading the accounts.

LOL.

50% of the Hog Islanders sank after 1 hit. 73% after 2 hits (I counted coup de grâce here in the 2 fish hits, including the couple that were finished off with 30 and 60 DG rounds respectively treated as a single added torp (the only alternative to the DG)). 83% of them hit with 3 sank (one not sinking out of 6 attacked).


For Liberty ships:
BTW, I just checked the Liberty ships. I got bored after doing all of 1944, but for every attack in 1944, 18.18% of attacks where 1 torp hit resulted in a sinking.

81.82% with 2 or more hits sank.

As a reality check, 79.17% of USN attacks on ~7k AKs with 1 fish resulted in a sinking. For the 7K data I used ships between ~6800 and 7800 tons (I had to flip through a book, and hand enter all the data, so I decided to err on larger rather than smaller shipping—I entered data for over 80 attacks). 83.64% hit with 2+ sank.

So, for super clarity:

Liberty (~7k t) vs U-Boats, 18.18% sunk after hitting with 1 torp (1944)
7k t jap vs Fleet Boats, 79.17% sunk after hitting with 1 torp. (entire war)
(edit, that last "entire war" should read " '44 to end of war," my bad).

tater

[Blue-Casket]

well i took a merchant in its stern pretty deep and it stopped dead in the water after a while.
And it looked like it was taking water.
The second torpedo didn't do a thing
but the third in the bow did the rest :arrgh!:
I really hate the torpedo's come on
i had one right in the middle and that ship should have been blown up because it was a tanker !
Pretty crappy job they did there but oh well i guess it will be fixed soon. :rock:

[walsh2509]

Well, I think that was the intention of the crew gaining experience and ratings in SH3 and SH4 as well.

My question is, has anyone actually waited to see if the ships take on water or fire damage and sink on their own?


With some Merchants moving at 7 to 13knts , you can't wait to see if one torp does it. Even with 3 torps in and ablaze from stern to bow they go sail on, I have yet to see one slow down or be dead in the water I hit one in the stern up went the explosion and sparks and firework and then stern section on fire and its just kept sailing on.

[EAF274 Johan]

Funny, because I was just thinking of posting a question if people thought torpedos are too strong :DL

I sank a 16000 ton transport with just one torp. It went down in less than a minute (my crew have no special abilities to increase the torp effectiveness). Maybe it was a lucky shot, I hit the transport more or less amidships at a depth of 2m, but at the time I found it a little suspicious.

[Dowly]

I struck a large steamer with two torpedos. One to midship and another to the bow. Huge fires and the bow was .5 meters underwater, yet it kept going at 8 knots. :shifty:

Also, on my first raid on Scapa, I struck HMS Malaya with 4 torpedos, all spread around the ship, the whole ship was on water and listing. Only after the 5th torpedo did it sink.

[wetwarev7]

After reading some of these posts, I'm starting to also wonder how many torpedoes are "too many torpedoes".

Just from what I've read so far, it seems like there might be a few situations where it takes 3-4+ torps to sink a ship, but a lot of the time it takes 1-2, which is really what I've come to expect from the Silent Hunter series.

I'm not saying the torpedo strength is correct, I'm just mulling all this over because I have nothing better to do 'til my first encounter. (Running real time, still some 220km from the UK)

[Gammelpreusse]

I have played my campaign well into 1940 now and attacked quite a few merchants. And something is really fishy about the damage model.

I do not know why, maybe it is because I have map updates on, I get to see a white and a blue damage bar above ships that get attacked.

When shooting, this bar slowly decreases. Sometimes the blue bar is affected as well, but if at all, then only once. That is, as long any white is left. Only after that blue decreases.

I suspect white is structural integrity, blue is the level of water penetration. (if that is in the manual, mea culpa, I didn't bother to read it :88))


Topedos kinda do the same, just here the blue bar is effected the most. As a general thumb of rule, each ship will stay afloat as long this blue bar is not decreased below at least 2 thirds, which is not affected by where the fish hits.

That aside ships are highly resistant to topedo. Tankers and Liberty ships will definitily require 3 torps at least, Big steamers and the likes 2 and so on. Sometimes more, almost never less. I also never saw any progress in either flooding or fire caused damage despite beeing forced to wait quite a bit of time on several occasions.

That does appear a bit exxessive to me

[malkuth74]

I have to correct some people. Ships will slow down if you hit them in the fuel reserve or engine room.

I have found that a Torpedo that is set to the right depth and hits a target under the main bride (IE middle of ship) will take out the engines most of the time.

I have also found that if you hit a ship at the back near the propellers that this will also take out the engines.

Did I 4 times in last patrol, stopped 4 Ships dead in the water, for I could surface later and take them out with the deck gun, when the rest of the convoy went away.

As for them sinking... I don't see it usually. I don't have the damage bars on anymore so I can't tell you... But the top damage bar is for hitpoints, the bottom one is for water or sinking from flooding.

100% of the time I had to do the stupid hit points to sink a ship. Flooding part hardly ever moves it seems.

[kylania]

I'm convinced that flooding isn't working. I hit a Steamer doing 11kts in the front twice. Its bow was under water, propeller and stern up out of the water and still it steamed on as if nothing was wrong, even though the few parts of the boat NOT underwater were on fire.

I see a lot of people talk about "the right depth" for torpedoes, what's that exactly? I've tried at the waterline, I've tried below the water line and nothing seems to break the 'HP is all that matters' limit.

[Tronics]

I've noticed that if you max out the torpedoman's damage passive (the lowest passive I think) and max out pre-heat, that you can actually get one hit kills.

I did this in my last patrol, slipped into a harbor and managed to 1 hit at least 2 medium - large cargo ships, however troop transports are still highly torpedo resistant.

[Viper114]

Somewhat. One of the ships I came across I hit with three steam torpedoes, but it was still moving. I had to surface and finish it off with the deck gun to claim my tonnage. It was fun, but I felt like I wasted three torpedoes for nothing.

[malkuth74]

Seems to be 2 major upgrades you want to do.. One is upgrade the cook special meal (moral boast)

And 2nd is upgrade the passive torpedo damage. Make a world of difference. And with the cook special, you can pre heat torpedos.

Can't wait for some mods to take this garbagge out and put torpedos at the damage they should be doing. Not this,,, oh upgrade me and I will magically somehow make the torpedo 2X more effective. :rotfl2:

[tater]

The stock SH4 DM had loads of problems, including some real errors in the location boxes, etc (if they are wrong areas can be invulnerable, etc).

Looks like they might need to be entirely fixed in SH5 as well as they were in SH4 mods (RFB, among others).

[Arclight]

Depends on the ship and where you hit it. Keelshots are far more effective than shallow hits.

Can take out most ship with 2 hits, some with 1, and other times 3 or more are needed.

Flooding bar seems to indicate number of compartments open to water, not actual flooding level.



Put 2 under the bow; in front of the bridge, spaced apart. Takes care of most. Those 16k transports go down with just 1.

Maybe needs some tweaking, depending on who you ask, but wouldn't call it broken. :)

[wetwarev7]

I see a lot of people talk about "the right depth" for torpedoes, what's that exactly? I've tried at the waterline, I've tried below the water line and nothing seems to break the 'HP is all that matters' limit.

The best depth to set the torpedo is about 2 meters below the keel so the torpedo is directly underneath it when it explodes. Unfortunately, the new recognition book does not have the keel depth so you have to guess :cry:

[kylania]

The best depth to set the torpedo is about 2 meters below the keel so the torpedo is directly underneath it when it explodes. Unfortunately, the new recognition book does not have the keel depth so you have to guess :cry:

When you ID a ship it's hull appears in the torpedo depth chart. I tried once, in calm waters to against a Liberty Cargo. I was 1m below it's keel. The torpedo just kept going, didn't blow up or anything. I made sure the magnetic trigger was active.

More proof this HP only thing is bunk, here's the Ark Royal with FIVE torpedoes in her (my Torp guy has all but one of the passive damage skills already). How this doesn't count as a kill is beyond me, but pissed me off so much I nearly deleted my campaign.

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/5469/arkroyal.jpg

[Arclight]

Her bow is resting on the bottom. :lol:

Same problem as in SH3&4; harbor raids are frustrating because of glitches like that.

[Blue-Casket]

Back again with some more news from the front !:arrgh!:

As many of us here complain there sure IS something wrong with the torpedo damage and sinking in global!

I've done a keel shot ( don't ask me how because it was with impact switched on)
the ship took water and was pointing down in the bow.

Now that same ship didn't want go down with 4 hits!
repeat 4 hits!
The next patrol 2 transports.
1 torp was enough for one of them the other sailed slowly away.

Then i found a task force.
Hit a battleship with 2 hits and still nothing wrong.
Then the battlecruiser behind it completely exploded with one luck shot :doh:

They should really do something about this stuff

ESPECIALLY THE SINKING

In silent hunter 3 you hit a ship and waited till it started listing and stuff.
And after a while it just capsized and stuff like.
This was realistic!
Silent hunter 5:
These ships don't budge and suddenly it says enemy unit destroyed and within 10 seconds it's on the bottom :stare:
What kind of bs is that !:dead:

The creators did a good job with the entire u boat and stuff but really messed up the damage section and fighting!
If this would be more correct i'm pretty sure more players would be happy.

But i do have some good tips!
Aim for the middle !
as low as possible.
The engine room is under the bridge so mostly in the middle.
Normally if you can rip up a ship right between two compartments he's done for!
I think it all depends on which compartment u hit the ship.
Big compartments means sinking but that's the problem lol :arrgh!:
they don't sink they just blow up :arrgh!:

[Arclight]

I've had ships destroyed without them actually sinking. The only time they plummet like that is when you blow away all their HP, which isn't strictly nescesary.

I've done a keel shot ( don't ask me how because it was with impact switched on)
the ship took water and was pointing down in the bow.

Now that same ship didn't want go down with 4 hits!
repeat 4 hits!
The next patrol 2 transports.
1 torp was enough for one of them the other sailed slowly away.

Then i found a task force.
Hit a battleship with 2 hits and still nothing wrong.
Then the battlecruiser behind it completely exploded with one luck shot :doh:
Sounds about right to me. :doh:

* Oh and iirc capsizing was rather a rare thing to happen, not realistic to have this happen all of the time at all.

[Webster]

keep in mind i dont have the game so i dont have first hand experience but just from reading so many posts here and also talking to people about stuff i can say this:

1 - torpedos are not weak, if anything maybe a little strong because DD are often lifted clear out of the water sometimes when hit so i think its the ships that are just way too strong and they need to be weakened and not have the torpedos stronger. many people have also confirmed the general opinion that merchant ships need twice the number of torpedos to sink then they should really need.

2 - ships do continue to flood and sink from it but not all the time, they will continue to flood only after the flooding bar reaches about the 75 to 80% mark and that is usually with only a little of the damage bar left as well

3 - sinkings are terrible, a guy told me he sunk a ship in the harbor in around 10 ft of water and the ships bow went up in the air at a 45 degree angle so a full 70% of the ship was out of the water. he said it was like a dump trunk dumping its load. he went on to say sunken ships will dry hump the bottom like a xxx movie and never stop and come to rest as they should.

4 - in many instances time conpression is more likely to kill you then the enemy, the game will almost never drop you out of time compression except to give you the death screen

[Nisgeis]

I've sunk liberty size (7k tons) sips with one or two torpedoes. I have seen some ships sink slowly after one hit without any encouragement from me. I've also seen some ships stabilise their damage after two hits and not get any worse and sail on regardless. I think the flames are disconnected, like they were in SH4, from the actual progressive damage, so even though a ship is on fire, the fire only indicates the amount of damage done so far, not damage being done progressively, which you could easily imagine.

[Sunfighter]

Talk about agony, i ran into an unescorted convoy of 12 ships, damn near hit every ship at least once, and sunk 6. The other 6 were dead in the water, I tried gunning them to death, but the damn deck gun cant sink ships it seems without expending like 30 rounds. Firing below the watermark seems to do nothing at all flooding wise, you just gotta beat the hell out of their hulls...takes forever, So i had to leave 3 ships dead in the water.

BTW 2 task forces were 30KM away...didnt even bother to come help these ships......poor guys....

[Sunfighter]

Oh by the way, dry humping still works to sink a ship..lol just did it.

If its laying low in the water, and its a good wave day....time it so you can ride a wave up and on top of the ship in question, do this at slow speed or youll die....

The weight of your ship will push the back end past the sinking point and the ship will go down....used to do it in SH3 all the time. Its harder in SH5 though, you get damaged A LOT easier.. anything over 5 knots and catching a bad wave will almost kill you outright.

[remowilliams]

After a bit of unscientific testing, I can say that if you max out the torpedo man's Warhead Specialist and Pre Heat abilities the torps seem about 2x more effective damagewise.

Last test, preheat off single shot caused 25-30% damage of target ship. Same ship, same shot Pre Heat enabled caused around 75-80% damage.

[tater]

After a bit of unscientific testing, I can say that if you max out the torpedo man's Warhead Specialist and Pre Heat abilities the torps seem about 2x more effective damagewise.

Last test, preheat off single shot caused 25-30% damage of target ship. Same ship, same shot Pre Heat enabled caused around 75-80% damage.

It turns out that during the war the "Happy Time" was really just a period when there were loads of powerups floating around the Atlantic. Once the USN was out in force, they started scooping up all the needed powerups.

True story!